" H E A R, O E A R T H ! "

"The Earth Helped the Woman..."

In Revelation 12, we read that there was “a wonder in heaven,” a contention between the red dragon (or Satan), also called the serpent, and the woman, the mother of the man child.  In his mad chase to destroy the woman, Satan cast a flood after her to drown her, but “the earth helped the woman” (v.16) by opening up its mouth (has the earth got a mouth?) to swallow up the water that Satan had sent to drown the woman.  Thus, the earth played an active role and sided with God’s purpose against the devil.  Does the earth have the capacity to understand? How did it know the 'meaning' of the flood of the dragon, to work against it?

In the Old Testament, there are also several instances where the earth had helped the people of God.  For instance, some young Levites who thought they also, and not Moses only was a special man of God, decided to challenge Moses.  Moses said the earth would open its mouth to swallow them up.  Before he had even issued the command, the earth came forth to help him.  “The earth opened her mouth” [again, as  in Revelation 12:16], and swallowed them up, and their houses,... and all their goods” (Numbers 16:32).  The earth heard the voice of Moses God’s minister, and rose up to fight on the side of God against the rebels.

Joshua 10:11 records a case where the heavens also helped the cause of God.  There was a battle between the people of God and their enemies.  The heavens released hailstones (blocks of ice) as missiles against the enemy.  And more enemies died from those strategically targeted heavenly missiles of hails than the Israelites themselves killed.  That was not the only way the heavens helped the people of God.  The sun and the moon also fought.  The sun would not set nor the moon rise in the heavens until the people of God had achieved their victory fully, over the enemy (vv. 12-14).  Of that day it was said, “the LORD fought for Israel” (v. 14).  It was the heavens that fought, yet it states that it was God Who fought.  In other words, the heavens were merely responding to God when they responded to the voice of Joshua the man of God.  In other words, again, when the people of God speak to the elements in nature, the elements do not hear the voice of the men who are speaking, but the voice of their God whose authority they are exercising.  One can state further that God has given the elements a mandate to help man in man’s propagation of the cause of God on earth.  So, God is the One at work when nature is mobilised to work in the name of the Lord.

The earth with all that is in it, can hear (Isaiah 34:1).  The heavens also can hear, with all that is in them - the sun, the moon, the stars, etc.  In fact, Judges 5:20 shows that the stars have also fought in the cause of the Lord.  The moon and the sun and the hails fought in the time of Joshua.  The stars, as well as the clouds and the rains and the quaking mountains fought in the time of Deborah (Judges 5:4-5).  The Bible states that the earth, and creation generally, is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 8:19).  How else would that manifestation be but in the rising up of the sons of God to begin to exercise over the earth and the heavens the power that is theirs to manifest in the course of their battles in the propagation of the Kingdom of God on earth?

Not many of us may now be aware of this right which is ours in Christ to exercise.  But Revelation 6:15-17 reveals that the time will come when men shall suddenly want to exercise it, but then the land and the seas shall not respond to them, not especially when responding to them would mean taking the wrong side, or siding the wrong people.  How would they side against a God whose wrath makes them tremble in fear (Jeremiah 10:10)?